That Time I Stood Up to a Homophobic, Transphobic Bully – Also, a Pastor

A storyteller I follow refers to his growth in the numerical unit of past iterations of himself. “That was eight Robs ago,” he’d say of himself, back when he used to believe one thing or behave a totally different way. I’ve started viewing my own growth in this vein, thinking about all the Toms that have existed in this singular Tom, particularly with regard to this active-passive dynamic. My passivity has run especially true in matters of relational conflict. Given the option to fight a conflict or flight a conflict (please excuse my incorrect usage of a noun as a verb in the name of symmetry), I will flight nine times out of ten. Ah, but then there’s always that one instance…

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I Can’t Believe I Came From Her

My grandmother died. These words rattle around my heart like pinballs that won’t settle, even a week beyond her funeral. And yet I wonder if the settling of these pinballs would be any better – the finality of their lodging into the belly of that machine, no longer kept alive by another flap of the paddles. Mayme Alice was the last of my grandparents to leave this earth, and undoubtedly the one with whom I grew closest.

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I (Still) Love You, Camp Ridgecrest

I’m only twenty miles away from Camp Ridgecrest, but it might as well be twenty dimensions. A bunch of foggy memories along with a million unformed, never-to-be ones. It’s a fog I can’t shake, follows my footsteps within and beyond the Blue Ridge. Am I crazy? Obsessed? Why does a camp have such a grip on me after all these years? It was one summer. One effing brutal beautiful summer. Why do I feel so much? Why do I hurt with a longing for what was and what wasn’t? And why do a bunch of entitled white southern Gen X Christian moms rake me to the core?

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Coming Out to Myself – 14 Years Later

It’s LGBT+ History Month, and October 11th is National Coming Out Day. After pondering this video idea for a few years, now felt like the right time to relive my first coming out – by re-reading the journal entry I wrote at 19 on a raw, tragic night in 2006. I hadn’t looked at these words in 14 years. T’was the night I came out to myself and to God: a same-sex attracted or gay or queer Christian. Soon after this, I’d come out to my parents too.

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I Am Not in Control

I have control issues. I have known this about myself for a little while now. Counseling has helped me see it more clearly, though I feel I’ve known this for many years prior. I don’t like being at the mercy of my circumstances. Especially the mercy of another human.

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Jesus Year

In 2017, when I was 30, I quit my full-time job at a boarding school to pursue more of Your Other Brothers. It’s work, certainly, editing blogs and producing regular streams of podcasts and videos, but it’s also a lot of ministry. Responding to emails from new readers. Engaging with supporters at coffee shops. Planning weekly digital gatherings and yearly “real-life” retreats. Am I comparing myself to Jesus, you’re asking? Why, of course I am. But shouldn’t we all?

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Oops, My Readers Are My Friends Now

It’s been a wonderful thing, and it’s been a debilitating thing, all these Internet friends. On the one hand, the Internet has filtered out “real life,” so to speak, connecting me with the people I deeply want to connect with. People with common interests, common sexualities, common faiths, common cross-sections of all these things. And on the other hand, the Internet has totally spoiled “real life.” Real life relationships — or the hapless pursuit of them.

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A Man of God I Am Not

Upstream, of course. I’ve always been swimming upstream. Against the current. The current of sexuality. The current of introversion. The current of inferiority. The current of separation. The current of brokenness and deficiency. The current of not being quite enough of a man, if even at all. Let alone a man of God.

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A “Love, Simon” Pseudo-Review

On High School, Deep Dark Secrets, Coming Out, Asexuality, My First Kiss, Longing, Commitment, Separation, and the Eternal What-If? I tracked along with 95% of Love, Simon. The deep dark secrets. The longings for other boys. The conflict between self and persona. The thrill of realizing you’re not alone.

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That Boy is Dead

I recently went home to celebrate my mother’s 60th birthday (she doesn’t look a day over 38). It was a weekend of laughs and meals and car rides that reminded me how blessed I am to be a Zuniga. And yet part of that weekend pricked a wound still in me. As part of our […]

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A Decade Without Annie

The vortex of my loathing for November stems from this date a decade ago. The day I lost my dog, Annie, to a freak accident. An accident I was convinced was connected to my first bout with pornography and God’s judgment. A decade later, I’ve laxed on the whole God punishing me thing; a decade […]

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Why I Do What I Do

A year ago, I knew nothing about recovery. Phrases like “twelve steps” and “Alcoholics Anonymous” may as well have been as foreign to me as “World Champion Chicago Cubs.” But then I started working with teens in recovery, both in the woods and in a beautiful building, and I’ve learned I’m not that different from […]

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The Opposite of Addiction

Back when I worked in wilderness therapy last year, I learned an important lesson: the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. I had to think about it for a while. Absorb it. Reflect on it. Think back on the times I’ve experienced addition — pornography, promiscuity, a poor self-image […]

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I Have a Podcast!

Friends, You might have heard I started a podcast. It’s called Your Other Brothers Podcast, a show about faith, sexuality, masculinity, and brotherhood. I’m increasingly stirred by this content matter, of helping struggling people escape loneliness and abandonment in the Church. To share my story in the company of my dear brothers is a surreal dream […]

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I Have Nothing to Say About Orlando

I read many tweets in the 48-hour aftermath of the Orlando shooting that claimed fifty lives. One jumped out at me most. It said: Christians: your silence is a deafening roar. I read the tweet, felt sobered by the tweet, grew annoyed by the tweet, and then pondered my own “role” or “responsibility” with regard to Orlando and […]

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The Hardest Video I’ve Ever Made

I don’t consider myself a videographer. I’m an artist first, a writer second, and somewhere within my inner swirl of creativity there’s room for music and painting and photography and even a little film. I have a YouTube channel, and I’ve shot/edited/published several videos over the years. Most of them are carefree and spontaneous and wandering-induced […]

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Your Other Brothers: My New Blog

So, I just launched a new blog! With a lot of help from my friends. It’s called Your Other Brothers, and it’s a storytelling community for Christianity amid struggles with homosexuality. These last few years of writing more openly about faith and sexuality have introduced me to some of my dearest friends all over the world. I’m […]

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I Just Want My Dad to Want Me

I walk into work on Tuesday morning and look up at the group assignment board, and my heart drops. For the first time in two months, my name is not listed beneath the addicts’ group. I’ll be returning to the first group of boys I ever worked with here, but now that all these months have gone […]

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I Don’t Get Bruce Jenner

I wrote about transgender people a little while back. In recent months I’ve felt God leading me toward greater empathy of transgenders. I still don’t fully understand the transgender experience, but then I’ll never truly grasp the straight experience or blind experience or Braves fan experience either. The more stories I hear, though, the more puzzle pieces slide into place. The more I see […]

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I Don’t Get Transgender People

I struggle with a lot of stuff. You might have heard. Some of my struggles have eased over time, and others remain . . . well, a struggle. I am a critical person. I don’t always show it, but I certainly think and feel it. I’ve been self-critical as long as I can remember. Tom, you’re unattractive and quiet and […]

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I Visited Westboro Baptist Church

DAY 114: For years they have intrigued me. I’ve watched their interviews and demonstrations on TV and YouTube. They travel the world, hailing from the innocuous center of Kansas and America. They call themselves Baptists — supposed believers of the same Jesus I follow. As I park my car in a Topekan residential area, I approach 12th Street with a distinct shudder. NO […]

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On the “Girl Meets World” Premiere

I never got into Boy Meets World growing up. I did catch a few episodes here and there. I know all about “Fee-hee-hee-nay” and how Cory Matthews started out as a fellow Phillies fan and then just didn’t care about my Phils anymore. But Boy Meets World was more my younger sister’s show than mine. More her world than my own. I was […]

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As Tom Daley Comes Out

Tom Daley came out yesterday. Maybe you didn’t hear, or maybe you don’t even know who Tom Daley is. He’s an Olympic diver from Great Britain, and he won a bronze medal in London last year. He’s only 19 years old. Tom Daley is also an incredibly fit, attractive dude; needless to say, I’ve known […]

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I Still Miss You, Annie

Friday, October 19, 2013: It is the final night of my first return to Georgia in a whole year. And for the first time since abandoning the South three years ago, I am actually sad to be flying back “home” to California tomorrow. Normally, I am not sad; normally, I am beyond ready to return […]

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SEEK WEEK in Review: God Isn’t Enough

Two weeks ago, my church commenced its annual autumn tradition. It’s called “Seek Week,” a week-long “festival” of fasting and, well, seeking God. Seeing ROCKHARBOR’s five Orange County campuses unite at one location for five consecutive nights was such fantastic foreshadowing for the future: people of all churches, all nations, all cultures, all ages and eras uniting […]

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